Reflections on a Partnership

"If you'd rather chase the sun than dwell in the shadows, a Golden Road is waiting inside."

This sun chasing spirit, captured on the entrance of Point the Way Café, will be unveiled today in Terminal 6 at LAX. If you've ever heard about doing business in an airport, you know it ain't easy. It took more than a village to open this thing, and I want to thank everyone at LAWA, Westfield, HMSHost, and Golden Road for their help. Here is the more than half full tale on how our partnership with such a large retailer, HMSHost, all began.

In late 2011, right after we filled our first Golden Road kegs, a man in a suit showed up at our Pub. He told me that he worked with a Company that "sold more draught beer than anyone" and that "we needed to get to know this company." The company was HMSHost, the largest airport concessionaire in the country.

Not long thereafter, I got a call from Doug Draper, who explained to me that with the change in my industry (craft beer kicking ass, consumers want flavor AND options!), their industry was dramatically changing as well to suit these same tastes. We became fast friends and I knew as one of the youngest and smallest brands they would ever work with, Golden Road needed his help. In addition to a friend, Doug became our brand ambassador and together we developed the Golden Road brand in airports while putting a special bid together for LAX and the local HMSHost team of GR believers. Golden Road was young and in many ways foolish, we didn't have all the marketing tools we needed. No VBI/brand focus/brand positioning. I didn't know what any of that meant. Perhaps it helped that Doug was called "a hotter Ryan Gosling" by some millennial Silver Lake hipsters on his first trip to Golden Road.. Regardless of motive, with Doug's guidance and the help of many at HMSHost, we were able to translate our brand into a concept that won the hearts of LAX, and we hope will win the hearts of passengers around the world, as well.

Point the Way Café is an amazing expression of a true 1+1=100 collaboration that has helped shape Golden Road's soul and bring our spirit to life.

We are risk takers trying innovative solutions such as a reservation system at an airport.

We are lovers of can products and friends of the environment, only putting draught and cans on our list.

We are supporters of our friends around the country who help us in the craft beer revolution with a special Founder's Beer List, curated by the Founders at Goose Island, 10 Barrel, Breckinridge, Blue Point, and Four Peaks

We are design nerds incorporating our Atwater Village industrial steel look into a more evolved Sunset Blvd feel.

We are beer lovers collaborating on an airport beer created with the traveler in mind called Carry On Citrus Ale (re-release coming soon! ).

Mostly, we are ambitious partners who were not happy with the status quo at airports or in beer who look at life with the kind of optimism that we can keep making everything we do a little bit better.

Cheers to my partner and friend Doug Draper, who makes traveling so much better and has positively impacted Golden Road and my thinking as a leader and lover of beer and travel.

We hope you enjoy a beer soon at Point The Way Café.

Your friend in beer,

Meggie Gill

The entrance to Point The Way Cafe, LAX Terminal 6.

Doug enjoying a 329 on an ironically foggy day in LA, when we decided to chase the sun to Catalina Island.